Cleveland born saxophonist Joe Lovano consistently tops the polls and is a Grammy winner who has interpreted Sinatra and Caruso and worked within both the mainstream and avant-garde. He recently became artistic director of New York's Caramoor Festival and is the Gary Burton Chair of Jazz Performance at Berklee College of Music. He maintains a busy international touring schedule that showcases his myriad projects and group formats.

All About Jazz: I'm looking at your schedule for the next couple of months. You are playing all over the world. How do you keep going?

Joe Lovano: Well, I first went on the road in 1973-74. When you're on an international touring schedule you're always on the road playing gigs. I spent a lot of years in the 70's touring with Lonnie Smith and Brother Jack McDuff and the Woody Herman Band. With Lonnie we played some gigs, with McDuff we were on tour for maybe 6-8 weeks. I joined Woody's band in August of '76 and left in January '79. We were on the road, one-nighters, the whole time. I had a week off in the summer and a week off at Christmas each year. That was it (Laughing). I was 23 at the time. So with those kind of roots the stuff I am doing now is nothing. (Laughing).

AAJ: Tell me a little about that Brubeck CD and the 'Joe Lovano Tango'?

JL: It was quite an honor, to get that call, realizing that Brubeck had heard of me and wanted me. A bunch of cats were on it. Gerry Mulligan, I think it was his last date. Gerry and George Shearing played a beautiful duet. Brubeck wrote a tune for each of us. When I showed up, he gave me the music, and it was the 'Joe Lovano Tango' (laughing) that he had just wrote by saying my name: 'JOE LO-va-NO tan-GO'; he just recited my name and started writing. It turned out to be very hip, real modal. He was amazing, so animated and excited when we listened to playbacks. He played with such a beautiful energy.

AAJ: The multigenerational nature of jazz that you talk about. Can you expand on that?

JL: I've been playing in this multigenerational scene since I was a kid. My dad was a happening saxophonist around Cleveland. My goal, when I was a teenager, was to play with him and the cats he was playing with, and have them dig me. It's amazing to live in this jazz community right now with the multigenerational thing and the multicultural exchange that has happened over the last 20-25 years. I've done a lot of stuff in France, Belgium, the Scandinavian countries and Brazil. When you live in this kind of world it fuels everything you do.

AAJ: Was the Caruso Project driven by a wish to get back to your 'ethnic roots'?

JL: It's not 'back' to the roots, it's with you every second you breathe. It just comes out in your music. If you're a creative improviser and in tune with who you are and what's going on, those things kind of happen. You know what Charlie Parker said; 'You have to live it to have it come out of your horn', that's really true. If you live in someone else's shoes or follow someone else's shadow, you're only playing your instrument like a machine. To try to be expressive and be real with what's going on out here, those things just kind of come out.

The Caruso project was a beautiful study. Not only to feel the roots of my grandparents and their journey to the States but to realize that Caruso lived in NY almost 20 years of his life and had such an amazing focus and purity in his delivery of sound. Caruso's majesticness carried through in Sidney Bechet's playing, Louis Armstrong; people that were hearing him in that early period. Caruso was one of the only cats recording. He was an amazing influence.

AAJ: One of the guys that I think had that sensibility was Jim Pepper. Did you play with Pepper?

JL: Yeah, a lot with Paul (Motian). We recorded together and toured Europe many times. Pepper was a real soulful cat and had a beautiful spirit. He was a free spirit. He was in one of the first groups that played what later became fusion. But his sound and his whole attitude were free and open, very vocal.

AAJ: How do you see yourself as the new Artistic Director for the Caramoor Festival?

JL: I hope to have an open door policy and draw some people and present some new music. This year I didn't do the programming, but I'd like to include some students and an ensemble that could be put together with young folks that had never played together before. It would be live auditions before the concert for me and some cats in my band to put together a group. Something that broadens the whole thing.

AAJ: Can you tell me about Joe Lovano Birth of the Cool ?

JL: I had a commission last year from the Monterey Jazz Festival. Gunther Schuller and I collaborated on this idea. Gunther wrote 3 excerpts from Birth of the Cool for me; 'Moon Dreams', 'Boplicity' and 'Move'. He wrote them as re-orchestrations for me and an ensemble. But then '911' happened and we never performed the piece. I'm planing to record and play it, but not until next Spring.